


As You May Have Heard

by prompt_fills



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Friendship, Gen or Pre-Slash, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Misunderstandings, Shippy Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-21
Updated: 2017-10-21
Packaged: 2019-01-17 10:39:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12363903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prompt_fills/pseuds/prompt_fills
Summary: In which Sergio gets mad about the booing and accidentally makes everything better.





	As You May Have Heard

**Author's Note:**

  * For [UCLfangirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/UCLfangirl/gifts).



> A little treat.

“Where do you want to eat?”

Gerard looks up, hip-checking his locker close. He puts on his shoes and shrugs, “The same as usual, I guess?”

“Boring!” Isco and Morata share a look and then they turn to Gerard in unison and boo at him, Isco even pointing an accusatory finger.

Gerard rolls his eyes, knowing the kids aren’t being spiteful. He’s heard it plenty of times before and takes no offence. They all know he can take the _gentle ribbing_ in stride. “Now, now, kids, we can’t go to Chuck E. Cheese's all the time,” he throws back.

As expected, the two of them add another round of booing, turning it up a notch.

The door to the lockers is slammed shut as Sergio storms past. He looks like he’s been through several rounds of interviews. Gerard grimaces as he recalls the type of questions he’s been asked – every other question demanded his thoughts on the “Zidane’s boys” or his comments on “Real Madrid scoring for Spain”, and they were all jabs at “the integrity of the team”.

The booing lasts a second too long, echoing weirdly in the room that has suddenly fallen silent. Belatedly, Isco lets his hand fall to his side.

Sergio is flummoxed, seemingly too furious to form words. Then he explodes into action, leaping across the room and grabbing Isco’s shoulders. “I can’t fucking believe you!”

He shakes Isco hard, slamming him back against the wall. Morata is trying to get in between them but he doesn’t stand a chance against the unstoppable force of pure rage.

“I won’t tolerate any of this, you hear me?!”

Gerard watches the scene with amusement. It’s like a fuse has blown and Sergio is beyond himself, yelling so loud he has to know other people can overhear. He’s gripping Isco so tightly the boy is wincing and trying to squirm out of the hold.

“The fans are one thing but you – you should know better!”

Geard smirks. Of course Sergio would jump to the wrong conclusion, that’s so like him. 

Gerard hears a soft gasp and a wheezing noise a little to his left and when he looks, he sees Jordi bracing himself against his locker, laughing like an idiot and not helping to explain the situation to fuming Sergio at all. Gerard approves. It’s fun watching Sergio ripping Isco to pieces.

Jordi is shaking with the badly-suppressed laughter, going all red in the face, eyes watering. It’s the choked-off intake of breath that catches Sergio’s attention, his head snapping towards Jordi.

Gerard shuffles in front of Jordi in case Sergio is looking for a new prey. No need to fuel his frenzy. He appreciates the sentiment but he really doesn’t need anyone – much less someone like Sergio – to stand up for him. His amusement morphs into mild irritation.

Sergio lets go of Isco and turns to Jordi. His tone is dangerously low as he hisses, “You think this is _funny_?”

“No one thinks it’s funny, Sergio,” Gerard says.

“We do!” Jordi wails. “It’s freaking hilarious!”

That obviously doesn’t help his case any, and Gerard has to intervene before Sergio launches himself at Jordi. Sergio looks like he’s mere seconds away from eviscerating him.

“Come on, old man, before you pop a vein,” Gerard says, firmly clasping Sergio’s shoulders and steering him away from Jordi before Sergio does something he’d later regret.

He keeps his hands on Sergio because he doesn’t trust him not to break away. Sergio is quivering with anger and the wild expression in his eyes makes the breath catch in Gerard’s throat.

Having someone defend him with such passion is simply overwhelming. He has never had someone this keen on making sure Gerard’s ‘feelings’ aren’t getting hurt. Everybody knows Gerard can take care of himself just fine but it feels so damn nice to have someone on his side, willing to pick up a fight with his own team on Gerard’s behalf.

The grip he has on Sergio might or might not be close to a bruising hug at this point but at least Sergio lets himself be dragged away.

On the downside, Sergio’s anger now refocuses on Gerard. “You shouldn’t treat this so lightly, you know,” Sergio says, jabbing a finger into Gerard’s chest.

Gerard grabs his finger and forces his hand down. “Well, if you asked, we could have explained,” he says, laughter creeping into his voice.

Hoping his face isn’t doing that stupid fond thing, he explains what happened before the guys started the booing Sergio walked in on. The anger slowly clears from Sergio’s face when he realizes his outburst have been completely uncalled for and unnecessary.

“Oh,” Sergio breathes out quietly and he stops struggling against Gerard’s grip. He turns his head back to where Jordi has now joined Isco and Morata, all of them watching their captain with curious eyes.

Sergio opens his mouth but the words that fall from his lips are far from an apology.

“You’re a bunch of idiots,” Sergio says. “I hope you’re proud of yourselves.”

“Well, we _did_ win the game,” Jordi pipes up but is quickly silenced by the warning look Gerard gives him.

Sergio shoots them one more venomous glare before saying, “Just make sure it doesn’t happen again.” Jordi opens his mouth and Gerard knows exactly what he’s going to say judging from the cheeky grin on his face and apparently, so does Sergio because he quickly adds, “The booing!”

Which, of course, is how the booing becomes a running joke.

The next time they’re on the pitch and the fans are booing him, the whole team starts chuckling and stealing glances to see his and Sergio’s reactions. At this point, even those who weren’t present at the Booing Incident already know all about it.

Sergio is trying to glare them down, and Gerard doesn’t even have to be near him to hear the “no laughing at my expense, fuckers, focus on the game” loud and clear.

Gerard lets himself be smug about it because now the rage of the fans is a sweet music to his ears. Sergio unintentionally managed to link the sound to a fond memory so now the hostility is like a wind beneath his wings.

His smugness only last until he realizes no one is _ever_ letting them live it down. The chorus of mock booing follows them wherever they go, the team never wastes a single opportunity to rub it in. 

Gerard bemoans his fate – why can’t they just have a special handshake like every normal person?

Sergio tries to do something about it, once. He clears his throat and asks, “Can we pretend it never happened?”

Predictably, he’s met with a chorus of, “Boo!”

Gerard sardonically pats him on his back. “The tribe has spoken.”

“Yeah. Guess you’ll just have to suck it up,” Sergio says.

Out of the corner of his eye, Gerard sees a small smile twitch on Sergio’s lips.


End file.
